


I have the future on my tongue

by lonelywalker



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Doctors really sucking at being doctors, F/M, Kitchen Sex, Things with knives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 21:36:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No, but seriously, why <i>didn't</i> they have that affair?<br/>In which Hannibal and Alana have more fun in the kitchen than just making tomato roses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I have the future on my tongue

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Margaret Berger's "I Feed You My Love".

The first time Hannibal Lecter invited her to one of his dinner parties, she had straight-up assumed he was trying to get into her pants. 

It was nothing personal, she’d just had her fill of lame come-ons from students, patients, and colleagues, and was similarly done with all the awkward dates. Hannibal wouldn’t have been the first to invite her to a “party” where all the other guests had mysteriously called off at the last minute. But she’d given him the benefit of the doubt and asked around, at which point she had realized that either Hannibal had bribed absolutely everyone she knew, or he really was a superbly talented, charming, and quite benign chef. 

The party itself had been divine, so much so that she’d felt entirely out of place among the gourmet dishes and the other guests: attorneys, musicians, and patrons of the arts who more or less amounted to the Baltimore aristocracy. But she’d been the last to leave, and she and Hannibal had talked for a long time, sipping wine, laughing at things only psychiatrists could find funny. She’d thought about kissing him that night, this attractive single man with the accent and the seminal papers and breathtaking skill in the kitchen. She’d also thought about skipping the kissing altogether and just marrying him while she had the chance. But she’d given him a hug and a warm “thank you” instead, and taken a cab home.

In the years since, Alana Bloom had rarely regretted that decision… but she had regretted it.

“Is this enough?” The chopped vegetables – celery and carrots and herbs – have formed neat mounds on the worktop. It’s possible that adding one more slice will spark an avalanche.

Hannibal glanced up. “I feel as though I’ve already imposed significantly on your time today.”

Alana wiped carroty hands on her apron. “So that’s a no. C’mon, what’s next? I said I’d help and here I am, helping. For at least another hour, anyway. Or do you really want to force me to do paperwork?”

“God forbid.” Hannibal smiled and lifted a finger. “Just one moment.” He was busy doing something unspeakably intricate that involved toothpicks and probably more dexterity than was required in modern brain surgery.

His kitchen really was a marvel: not just that it was spacious, even though she’d had apartments smaller than this kitchen, but that its cupboards and cabinets hid every manner of ingredient, plus the sort of technology she only expected to see on _CSI_. Not that the _CSI_ team did much cooking. “You know, Hannibal, I’d say you’d make someone a great wife… but apart from being unspeakably sexist, I’m not sure anyone’s wife cooks as well as you do.”

He shrugged. “It’s fortunate that I know how to make things look good. I can cover up my failings, of which there are no doubt many. Here, an imperfect rose for the lovely lady.”

She took it from his fingers – really just one long curl of tomato, but knowing the trick behind the magic didn’t make it any less beautiful. And apparently he thought that one crooked cut ruined it entirely. “It’s too pretty to eat.”

“And yet if we do not, its beauty will fade regardless.”

“Hannibal, Hannibal, Hannibal.” Alana ate the rose, feeling much like she was devouring the _Mona Lisa_ as she did so. Or at least one of Van Gogh’s minor works. “I’m torn between asking how you learned to do this, and how I became so comfortable accepting that your name isn’t the strangest thing.”

He smiled again and stepped back, going to his fridge. “There were very few Alanas where I grew up.”

“That I accept, but just how many Hannibals were there? Seriously, did your parents have a strange fascination with elephants?” Possibly this wonderful beer of his was having more of an effect than she’d thought. 

Hannibal tossed her a bag of bell peppers, which failed all of her aerodynamic expectations. “Not at all, I was conceived in the Alps.”

Alana scooped the bag up from the immaculately clean floor. “Yeah?” She met his eyes. “Hannibal Lecter, are you fucking with me?”

“Probably. By the time I was old enough to be interested, my parents had passed away.” He’d found bowls for her chopped vegetables. “At least I’m not required to use numerous middle initials when publishing research papers.”

“See,” she said, pointing her knife at him. “Now that’s a silver lining.” He looked at the knife, and so did she before placing it very carefully on the table. “Sorry. Have I mentioned your beer is _very_ good?”

One of the things she liked about Hannibal was his relentlessly good nature. All psychiatrists had to be able to adopt that sort of persona, of course, but with Hannibal it persisted into what she’d seen of his private life. There were times he brooded, but never anything like Will. She couldn’t remember ever seeing Hannibal angry, much less aggressive. Which was at least part of the reason she’d never been in a room alone with Will, but was quite happily alone in a house with Hannibal.

“I’m glad you like it.” Somehow he could even make chucking vegetables into bowls an art form.

Alana took another sip. “I’m thinking… cherries?”

“Mm, possibly.”

“That is not a yes or no.”

“There are many shades of gray between yes and no.”

“There are not that many shades of cherries.” She put the glass down and cut open the bag of peppers. They probably needed to be washed. Knowing Hannibal, they were from an organic farmers’ market rather than the nearest Safeway. Manure rather than bleach. “Are you dating anyone?”

He set the bowl down by the sink and looked back. “Am I ever dating anyone?”

“Fine, are you sleeping with anyone, then?”

She was always a little delighted when she managed to faze him. Hannibal leaned against the counter and dusted off his hands. “I’m not sure I remember what we were talking about that made you feel you had to flirtatiously change the subject, as you put it.”

“Maybe I’ve just been spending too much time with you and Will recently. The BAU’s a whole building full of evasiveness.”

Hannibal nodded. “Well, perhaps I should adopt a different tactic and flirtatiously remain on the same subject. No, Dr. Bloom, I am not currently sleeping with anyone. It’s a difficult act to fit into my day planner, between patients and consults, and of course my ever-demanding mistress.” His hand swept around to indicate the kitchen.

“Ah, so this is what you keep running off to. We kept inviting you to bars and you kept begging off. By the end of the semester we assumed you were screwing half the arts department.”

“Perhaps three quarters. Cooking and lovemaking are, of course, not too dissimilar.”

Alana laughed. “You know, I’ve heard you should never, ever sleep with a man who says ‘lovemaking’, but I’ll give you a pass since it’s your second language.”

“Third, actually,” Hannibal said. “So does that mean you intend to sleep with me?”

She mentally reviewed her last sentence. “Okay, I’m blaming that on the beer again.” Really, though, she’d only had the one glass… “And your second would be?”

“French.”

“Ah, mais oui. The language of love, et cetera.” She looked at him steadily, and parsed the phrase out in her head before she said it which, she assured herself, was something she would never do while drunk: “Seriously, why didn’t we have that affair?”

He reached back to unknot his apron. “Seriously? Because I was involved with someone else and we were both very busy.”

“We’re still very busy.”

“I’m told by my distinguished colleague that in fact we are not. At least for the next hour.”

Alana would never have looked at the name Hannibal Lecter on a manuscript and imagined he could be anything like the man he really was. The name, even with its connotations of military genius, could never etch those cheekbones, those eyes, that fine brown hair that sloped into blond in the right light. None of which really compared to his intellect, wit, and skill. A real Renaissance man, come to Baltimore via Paris. And, perhaps most importantly, a Renaissance man who, if she told him no, would smile and go back to patiently crafting… she didn’t know, tulips out of sardines or something.

But she didn’t tell him no.

“I think perhaps we should try that affair,” she said, and half expected him to laugh. Instead he tossed his apron over some artichokes on the counter, stepped around her table, and kissed her.

She should’ve known he’d taste good: wine and tomato and all the other tidbits of dishes he’d been preparing this evening. It was a wonder he managed to stay in shape. The kiss was romantic rather than passionate, tender and perhaps a little hesitant, which she knew was a lie. Hannibal was at least ten, maybe fifteen years older than her, and had surely blown through far more partners than she’d ever been on awkward dates. But still, it was nice of him to pretend just a little. 

Alana ran her hands through his hair, so neat, so clean: “I’m not going to break, you know,” and Hannibal pushed her up against the wall. One of his framed drawings swung by her head. 

“I know,” he said, and kissed her again, a real kiss this time, a hand pressed to her cheek, his tongue in her mouth, tasting, seeking. 

He was a truly imposing man leaning into her like this. Not so tall, really, although possibly a foot taller than her in her socks, but confident, purposeful. Precisely what she didn’t want to encounter in a dark alley, and exactly what she needed in bed. “Dammit,” she said, and squeezed his ass. “Your kitchen is not the right place for this.”

Hannibal looked back over his shoulder as if assessing it. “I beg to differ. This room is all about passion.” His hands slipped around and behind her, untying the apron strings as their mouths met again. 

He dropped the apron to the floor, which probably caused him more unease than anything else about this situation, his hands moving, feeling the shape of her. And she… she was thinking about his cock already as he pushed up against her, his body under the dress shirt and slacks much warmer than she’d expected. She thought of Eastern Europe and expected ice, as though Hannibal slept in his refrigerator. 

She gave his shirt a tug. “Take it off.”

Tit for tat: his teeth nipped at her lip as he moved far enough away to blindly unbutton his shirt, kissing her throat while he did so. And, stripped off, he held his arms out as if crucified, dropping the shirt from his fingertips. Not as pale as she’d expected, and considerably more buff. Where he found the time to go to the gym was beyond her. “And now the lady?” 

Somehow he could still be charming and boyish while asking her to disrobe in his kitchen. 

“The lady has far fewer clothes,” she pointed out.

“So much the better.”

More beer would have helped, Alana reflected, turning and holding up her hair to let him unzip her dress. “Tell me Will, Jack, and the entire BAU aren’t about to bust in here.”

“They are not. I’m quite particular about my home security.” He slipped the dress from her shoulders, folded it down around her waist, and stopped. “You’re a very beautiful woman, Alana. Exquisite.” His fingers were gentle on her waist, brushing against her bra.

“Too pretty to eat?” she joked, and really she deserved the interested noise he made by her ear. 

He unclasped the bra and she let it fall, feeling truly naked now in his kitchen which, despite its antique wood and attempt at a homey atmosphere, was really too big for any kind of intimacy. Still, she could feel the touch of his skin at her back, his arms around her, and he leaned in to kiss her. “Don’t be nervous,” he said. “Are you cold?”

This was, she thought, precisely why she usually avoided entanglements with psychiatrists. Too much psychoanalyzing. Too much really understanding where her head was at. But, God, Hannibal’s hand smoothed up her stomach and cupped a breast, carefully rubbing over the nipple and it was now impossible for her to be cold.

She leaned back into him a little, pushing back into his hips. She _needed_ him to be hard now. Achingly, hugely, embarrassingly hard, which might make up for the way she was definitely not just his professional colleague and occasional beer buddy anymore. But he spun her round instead, his smile enigmatic, mischievous, as he ducked his head to replace fingers with lips and – oh – that tongue, probably no longer tasting of wine but of her.

There could be some uncomfortable associations in this, a grown man suckling at her breast, but she goddamn _rejected_ uncomfortable associations. It wasn’t the associations making her thighs tremble and a heat radiate from between them. 

Her fingers were in his hair again and she was pondering how she could really mess it up before he raised his hand to caress her other breast and, really, she had to hold a moratorium on thoughts altogether. Fuck it, this was just too good.

Better, though, was when he got down on his knees, taking the rest of her dress with him… which meant she was in panties and shoes. At least she could kick off the shoes.

He started to kiss her thighs, trailing his fingers along behind, which was both incredible and ridiculously infuriating. Now she didn’t even have a wall to lean against. Just her legs, which seemed less steady by the second. “God, Hannibal.” What did she want him to do? Stop? Fuck her? No, not stop, definitely not stop. And he ran his tongue over her panties, over her clit.

She’d never been with a guy who’d done this on the first night. Oral meant commitment, meant caring enough to take care. But she wasn’t going to question it now.

Hannibal glanced up. She didn’t know what he was looking for – permission? – but he seemed to find it and gently, gently, slid down her panties so she could step out of them. She could have pointed out that the nudity ratio was pretty unbalanced at present. What she really wanted, though, was his mouth on her again.

It was too, too much the way he spread her legs just slightly, enough to kiss her there, his tongue moving in ways she couldn’t think clearly enough to imagine. If they’d been in bed she would have taken a fistful of bed linen in each hand and abandoned herself to it. But now she just couldn’t, couldn’t relax because she had to stand, her mind constantly distracted from the pleasure, that warm, ever-building pressure, by gravity and balance and the tiles beneath her feet. And he knew it, hands grasping her hips, keeping her precisely where he needed her to be because that meant prolonging this, making her mind experience every last second of it before her body gave in and she just _had_ to come.

He was enjoying it too, humming his delight at her body, the taste of her, gorging himself as much as you could gorge without biting… oh, and the _thought_ of his teeth was a thrill of excitement now, body chemicals head over heels. Alana rocked her hips just a little, pushing against his tongue. If he was fucking her like this, she was damn well going to fuck him too.

But, again, he had her at a disadvantage, taking his right hand from her hip, stroking it down over her ass, and then bringing it round to slip through the wetness that was half her, half him by this stage, and slide two fingers right inside. Not enough to fill her up, but enough to make her realize Hannibal who, ten, fifteen minutes ago had been her quiet cooking partner, was inside her. And she came.

Her cries echoed in the kitchen, her fingers tight in his hair, body taut and breathless. She didn’t fall to the floor, but couldn’t exactly figure out why. Hannibal worked miracles in this kitchen: perhaps that was another one.

“Fuck,” Alana said. He’d probably never heard her curse before and now she was profaning the holiest of holies. She untangled her fingers from his hair, expecting to have torn out bloody chunks by the roots. But he was presumably made of sterner stuff. “You have one hell of a mouth.”

Hannibal stood up, brushing down his slacks, and tugged open his belt. “I think I taste… is it Merlot? With hints of apple and pine?”

She would have smacked him if she had anything to hand other than a flask of beer. “Maybe the Diet Coke and the chicken wrap I had for lunch.”

“Classy choice.”

“Always.”

He took off his shoes first and the socks, carefully, his eyes on something behind her. And then of course he moved her glass and the flask, because they both knew what was coming next. Which, honestly, she both desperately wanted and slightly objected to, the idea that he’d fuck her on what was essentially a chopping board. But she leaned back against it, hands on the edge as he finally took off his pants, folding them over the counter. The outline of his cock, thick and hard in his briefs, was pretty damn obvious, and she hadn’t even touched him.

“Huh,” she said.

Hannibal stripped off his underwear and looked up, curious. “What?”

“I don’t think I’d ever actually imagined you naked. But apparently you come with all the necessary parts.”

He was really quite a sweetheart to put up with her babbling. “Apparently. I also keep spares in the freezer.”

When he kissed her, it was so good to feel the heat of him against her, the pure _want_ of him as she curled her fingers around his cock and listened to him just breathe. Hannibal, Hannibal. Once a strange name and now what she called out when she came. Funny world.

He’d been having his way long enough, so it seemed absolutely natural to sidestep him and turn so he was the one with his back to the table. Why she picked up the knife, though… Maybe just because he was a man, bigger and stronger, and could _make_ her do what he wanted easily enough, not that Hannibal really would. But in a moment she had him bent back a little, eyes on the stainless steel blade where his throat would have been. Really, the fact he didn’t freak out was an even bigger turn-on.

“I believe I have a right to a trial first,” he said and, laughing, she was about to put it down, safely, far away, when either he moved or she did or both, and there was a line of bright red blood bubbling up from a cut just below his collarbone.

“Oh, shit.” She shoved away the knife, heard it rattle into the sink. “I am so sorry, Hannibal. I wasn’t thinking…”

He didn’t seem shocked or hurt though, just frowning a little as he smeared the blood with his finger, sucked at it. “It’s nothing. Come here.”

“It is not nothing.” Possibly it was stupid to have this argument with a surgeon, but she was horrified with herself. _Toddlers_ knew not to play around with knives. 

Hannibal just smiled. “Alana, it’s stopped bleeding. Come here.”

So she went and let him kiss her, maybe tasting his blood on his tongue. Part of her wanted to lick his wound clean, taste him more, but that would seem even crazier than holding a knife to his throat. Some people got off on that, but Hannibal probably wasn’t one of them. Then again, he was still impressively hard in her hand and he was still having sex with her rather than calling Jack to report an assault. 

He lifted her up to sit on the table and all she wanted to do was touch him, see him smile, make him feel good. An apology, yes, but also just because she wanted him, and because he clearly wanted her too.

“You’re a crazy woman,” he said as she lay back, not exactly comfortable but long past caring. “But very polite, so I can forgive almost anything.”

She hooked her ankles around his waist, drew him closer. “I’m still invited to your party?”

“You are. Although the dress code may be a little different.”

Would this have been different if they’d done it two years ago? Surely he would still have felt the same, with the same thrust of hips against her, the same curious light in his eyes. But she might have been different. Maybe she would have been better, less overawed, slightly more tipsy. Next time, if there was a next time, she’d just have to avoid sharp objects… and maybe flirt with him in a slightly more comfortable room.

His name really was what she called out when he made, just _made_ her come, her legs tight around him, forcing him deeper. “Hannibal,” she was murmuring again afterward, wanting only to kiss him, touch him, breathe him in, when he spilled out inside her with one forceful thrust, his eyes open. His cry was wordless, but he was smiling, laughing when he folded her up in his arms. 

“I’m happy we did this,” he said, backing up just as being sandwiched between him and the wood was starting to be seriously uncomfortable. 

She sat on the edge and eyed him: sometimes his tone was off in the most unexpected ways, but that probably came from the language barrier. Some things you only learned if you’d been speaking it your entire life. “Me too,” she said, and she was about to something when he took the sentiment right out of her mouth:

“Perhaps we should avoid mentioning this to Will.”

“Perhaps we should avoid mentioning it to _anyone_.” Alana hopped down from the table and started picking up her clothes.

Hannibal nodded, fingers combing back his hair. “Of course.”

And there they were, right back to a level of professional civility even if they were naked. Still, there was little else she could do than get dressed again, shake out her hair, and watch him spray down the surface in question as soon as he had his pants back on. It was, in a way, precisely what she’d wanted: sex with no strings and no effects on their relationship, or on Will, who had become in some ways inextricably bound up with the two of them. 

“I’m sorry I have to run.”

“That’s perfectly all right.”

“I didn’t finish helping you.”

He smiled. “I can do it myself. I enjoy it.”

“Well…” Now this was precisely like those awkward dates, except that she actually wanted to see him again. But saying that, of course, would make her seem unbelievably needy, even if all she meant was the chance to banter while dicing vegetables.

Hannibal was buttoning up his shirt, rolling up the sleeves. “I’ll keep your reserve cold for you, for the next time you visit.”

Damn psychiatrist. “Great. Good.”

“And maybe after the dinner party, you’d let me cook for you sometime? Just the two of us?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Just us? Not Will, not Jack, not the Chesapeake Ripper? Why Hannibal, this sounds dangerously like we might be having an affair.”

It was strangely impressive just how much his eyes lit up when he smiled. “Well,” he said. “Why shouldn’t we?”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Hannibal Kink Meme](http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1375.html) and the prompt: Hannibal/Alana RoughKitchenSex - The seduction continues following that kitchen scene!


End file.
